Recording disasters, personal or otherwise

Last night, I had the worst nightmare I've had in ages. Part of it involved some sort of supernatural disaster, some storm-to-end-all-storms Rapture, probably prompted by my listening to "Left Behind" on audiobook a couple of weeks ago. My first instinct in this incredibly realistic dream was to gape. Then, my next thought was, "I've gotta record this somehow, take a picture or get it on tape," which I imagine is what I would think in real life. After taking a picture or two, I began to realize that I shouldn't worry about recording it; I should worry about getting the fuck out of there.

But there's something to be said for the instinct to record disasters. Every time I see one of those reality videos of some disaster taking place, I think, "how can this person just STAND there?" or, if they are going to stand there, how can they have the poise to videotape it? How far ahead is that guy who sees the plane headed for the skyscraper and goes digging in his closet for his handicam thinking? Is he, on some level, imagining selling the rights to his video, is he thinking that this will prevent people from forgetting how horrible a tragedy this was, or is it all just some unconcious gut reaction (prompted by what?). After this dream, I'm beginning to think more about this instinct; it may not be that dumb after all. It may be closer to the instinct to survive (collectively and individually) than we'd imagine.

Maybe we record to learn how to prevent disaster in the future, to analyze what went wrong. But more than that, I think we want to record that which doesn't happen that often, that which is normally hard to see or hear or experience, and whether its incredibly good or incredibly bad doesn't even enter into it. Whether we watch it (or how many times we watch it) is another matter.

blog as column vs. blog as memoir

I'm still wading through my past, editing hundreds of pages and 10 years of journal entries into...something, maybe some early version of a memoir. These journal/blogs take on a new usefulness once they get big enough, b/c then you can search for things, words, emotions, people, movies, places, and see these patterns that you didn't know were there. I guess the data mining folks know this already, know that our identities are in these numbers and letters if you know how to find them. All I'm saying is its fun (if not unhealthily narcissistic, perhaps masturbatory) to mine your own data.

Blogs that are more like columns, more about other people's lives (heads of state, etc), or those that include links to other blogs or sites seem geared towards present-day usefulness. Not that they aren't of lasting value (what isn't?). But I guess I'm just partial to the ones that chronicle your everyday life.

Maybe I've gotten too wrapped up in recording my life to prevent my death. Maybe I shouldn't have done such a half-assed job of it for so long. I should just have sections of my life that go unchronicled. There's just something maddening about how fleeting a really great day is.